


The Great Divide

by contritum



Series: The Great Divide Universe [1]
Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Original Work
Genre: (not really but the threat of it), Action/Adventure, Apocalypse, End of the World, Fantasy, I Promise It's Not All Just Suffering, Just Read It If You're Curious, MINCE R A F T, Magical Artifacts, Magical Realism, Multi, Multiple Dimensions, Slow Burn, Supernatural Elements, Undead, War, both in relationship and sometimes in plot progression, somehow both magical and gritty
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-01
Updated: 2019-11-06
Packaged: 2020-11-08 15:03:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20837486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/contritum/pseuds/contritum
Summary: The Overworld is changing every day, full of abundances of magical creatures and the Undead, seams between the other dimensions starting to blur. The races of once-unified Villagers and Illagers have torn the world apart with war over magic. Steve, Alex, Nadia, and Ven, despite their differences in creed, all have a similar motive: survive and discover as much as they can in their warped, fantastical world before their borrowed time might be up.Something evil lurks beneath, waiting to be found.





	1. Steve

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Jamie H.](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Jamie+H.).

> SLIGHT TW in this chapter for implied abuse/mistreatment and unsafe binding. I don't mention anything directly, but it's implied that senor Steven does not have a good home life. Stay safe!  
ALSO - this chapter takes place two or three years before present day.

Steve fumbled through his room, trying to gather as many little trinkets and items he could before heading on his way. He was only taking what could fit on his back- the clothes he was wearing, a tent, and a huge, bulging bag with a crude wooden blade sticking out of the top, holding a change of clothes, a winter coat, perishable food, some wildflower seeds, coal, other essential things and his abundance of sentimental belongings. Still, he had to leave soon, and he couldn't, for the life of him find his pickaxe.

He had never noticed how... full his room was until he was forced to leave it all behind. Well, not forced. But to Steve, he had no other choice. Still, as long as he had Entrapta with him, he was sure he would be fine. Where was she, anyway? He could hear her barking at the chickens outside, had he packed enough food for her? He was sure that was one of the first things he grabbed. He pulled back a book on one of the shelves and grabbed a little bag of emeralds he kept tucked behind his endless books about the Undead and magical creatures so no one would take it. He planned on staying in villages, if they would take him in, that is.

Okay. He glanced at his clock, and it looked like the sun would set in a few hours. He needed to be long gone before anyone got home. He checked his bag. Coal. Seeds. Lucky necklace. Compass. Sword. Axe. Dried kelp. Bread. Flint and steel. The list went on and on. He was much too frazzled, and he felt like he was taking too many things, but it was hard for him knowing that he would never come back here. He would never sit on his bed in the soft lamplight writing something stupid in one of his journals, or water his flowers- oh, god, his flowers. He tried to fit some of them in a box, but it wasn't like he could take care of blooms that needed tons of sun and water, or dig up his garden plot, so he was forced to only take the little succulents and cactuses he knew he could both carry and take care of. Someone would water them after he was gone, right?

He placed his bag down on the bed and glanced at his desk. It was littered with papers, sketches, diagrams, extraneous writings he would never revise. He had already packed away his more important journals and sketchbooks to take with him, but again, he could never fit everything. He pulled out the chair to his desk and sat down, one last time. His lantern glowed, redstone reaction to his chair still hooked up, and illuminated his dugout of a room further. Steve let a singular, dry sob escape him and he pressed his head against his desk. He didn't cry. He would never come home again, but he wouldn't cry for this horrible place. He would find a new home. He wouldn't be confined at home anymore! He opened his eyes, what laid on his desk was his dumb sketch of the Ender Dragon. As a child that had been his end goal- to go to the End, the Nether, explore the world and experience everything he could. And yet he'd only been out of the Plains he resided in once, never smelled the fresh pine and nutty earth of the forest that condensed and spanned over mountains beyond the hills that were so close, but seemed so far away. He wanted to go to villages far beyond, talk with people outside the family, meet magical creatures and monsters, sit in a cave with a freshly lit fire tucking him away from the torrent of rain outside. He wanted to smell the salty air on a beach, step into the water and feel the waves lap at his legs. He wanted to see a school of tropical fish, a guardian, join a voyage overseas and throw away all responsibility and just abandon.

As much as he loved the farm, it wasn't enough for him. He was an adventurer, an explorer. And he needed to get out before he never got to feel all the things he chased after in life. He felt like a light that was going to be blown out. He needed to be himself. He instinctively reached under his shirt and tightened the bandages coiled haphazardly around his chest- they hurt, but it felt so good to finally be able to fix himself with_ something. _

He twisted the overly extravagant ring around his finger, hesitantly pulled it off, and placed it on the desk. Steve stood up and slung his bag over his shoulders. Screw the pickaxe. Screw anything he was leaving behind, screw this whole place. Screw his parents and screw Yves. He needed to go before someone could stop him.

Steve took one final look around his room. He couldn't fit any more books, or papers. He didn't leave a note, he didn't need to. He touched his pot of daisies and took in their gentle aroma, gingerly touched his roses, put a hand at the base of his orchids as a final goodbye. He breathed in the dingy, average air one last time and left the room. Whistling for Entrapta, she came running, a blur of feathers behind her. She stared up at him, her grey fur rustled, tail wagging, big brown eyes staring up at him almost judgingly. She didn't know she would never get to play with the chickens and pigs again, or sniff the cows and chase away flies through the stables. He did. He hoped she would be okay, but there was no way he was leaving her behind.

He followed her as she trotted off to the barn, where the hens bustled around outside. They always seemed too busy with just living. Bugs and ants skittered under their pecking beaks, the tall grass almost hiding the birds and rustling slightly with their motion and the breeze that fell over the plains. A few ran up to him and pecked at his hiking boots, and he pet a few of the less mean ones, wishing them the best. Steve stepped into the barn, with the glowing lantern in the high ceiling that never managed to fill out the corners of the barn, full of scaffolding and hay and cobwebs tucked away in the shadows that danced with the wavering flame.

It was before nightfall, so some of the pigs ventured into their pen outside, but some remained, sticking their snouts through the bars and sniffing him hesitantly, probably looking for a scrap of food. Steve pulled a few carrots out of his pocket and fed the piglet that was only three months old (he prayed that they would let her live to adulthood), and her mother, with the black spot on her eye and a higher-pitched snort, and all of the other pigs he had affectionately named in private. He pet Willow, the little one's, head, and continued into the barn. The four cows and mule stared at him and stuck their muzzles out to be pet, and he didn't fail to do so, slipping a few sugar cubes for Eeyore, the mule, and a handful of grains for the dairy cows. He pressed his head against one of the cows and ran her hand along her neck. She was always a little too skinny, he hoped at least Yves would see that they were fed enough once he left. Steve would have his own farm one day, but he wouldn't have the heart to hurt any of the animals, he'd seen too much of that already.

Steve left the barn and shook a little hay off of his leg. Entrapta ran up to him, tail wagging, and he smiled and pat her head. She followed him as he made his way down the beaten path that connected the barn and his house in the hill, but he didn't stop to make the turn. He just kept walking and walking, and when the wolf-dog mutt whined and tilted her head at him, he gave her an encouraging scratch behind the ears and kept going.

The sun started to inch towards the horizon, a peachy glow starting to inch up from the skyline of the hills and trees in the distance. It was just Steve and Entrapta, and a shred of hope for the future, and that was enough for him.


	2. Nadia

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: there is mention of a dead body/remains. There is no gore, it is a skeleton, but still. Stay safe!  
Another note - this chapter is Nadia's background. It takes place two years before present day, which about lines up with Steve's chapter

The spark hit her torch and in an instant it lit up as if it were doused in oil, illuminating the entrance in front of her. Nadia had walked for hours and hours through the barren desert that lay just beyond the expanse of huge dark oak trees and strangler figs that blocked out the sunlight like a spell, their branches peeking out under the mountains that’d taken her days to climb. In short, she was far, far away from home, but that was the point.

Nadia had left a month or two ago- honestly, she had lost track of the days a week or two ago, only relying on the handheld clock around her wrist. It had been a hasty abandon, she said something along the lines of trade in one of the neighboring villages over the mountains.

Nadia had no intention of coming back.

She had taken only the bare necessities in a drawstring bag, and her lamb, Arvun, who she had bought from a farmer last year who intended to sell him for meat. The commonly accepted color for sheep in the village was either dyed red or their natural color, so she'd slipped a chunk of blue dye into her pocket on her way out. She washed her two-year-old sheep in the river with a solution of two parts lapis lazuli, one part water until it was the color of the 'enemies'. She'd donned a blue and yellow cloak over her shoulders once she was far enough away, too- it was her best interpretation of a wandering trader. It wasn't as oversized as she'd hoped, and the mask she made with it didn't exactly cover her freckle-dusted, warm skin or the tuft of now slightly grown-out fluffy hair that she hadn't bothered to tame. While traders were usually of a warm-skinned variant, they were mostly impartial in the war, and since wandering traders had no alliance to any settlement, neither Illagers nor Villagers showed hostility to them.

It was long after nightfall. A crimson, waning gibbous moon had started to sink back down towards the horizon as she’d made her way out of the cave she had led her now blue sheep into to lay low for the night. The husks of the fallen always seemed to quiet down after the first few hours, but she was still careful.

Nadia traced her hand over the weathered sandstone of the unnecessarily wide entryway. It crumbled slightly at the touch. There were carvings along the entrance too, intricate and detailed despite being millennia old. The message, well, that didn’t really apply anymore. These temples have been built long before the Great Divide, and in those times, she wouldn’t have had to be here.

She stepped further into the temple and heard the distinctive hiss and skitter of a giant spider, its crimson eyes glowing bright in the dark, but it didn’t advance towards her, so she ignored it. Her one light didn’t do much, but touching her torch to two burnt-out ones hooked to the wall near the door sent the shadows shying away and hugging the walls and open entrances to corridors she’d rather not explore. Her breath picked up sand in the air.

Nadia looked around. There were carvings everywhere, she could recognize the runes with her eyes closed, even if the village prohibited it. Spires climbed high into the ceiling, which converged into a pyramid, and looking up to the top she could see the way to the dim moonlight that shone through the person-sized hole at the very tip, and stepping even closer she almost stepped into a drop.

She slowly looked down, and sure enough, there was the symbol, faded into the ground: a blue and orange compass rose. Nadia braved the jump, landed on one knee, her torch almost burnt out. She lit up the ones on pillars on the lower floor, too, then threw hers to the ground and ferreted through her bag for her pickaxe.

Just to the right, or left. Or any direction. Any less than a meter, and, well… she started to dig, well aware of what awaited her below. Once she’d made a small opening, a hole that only went down a short way but gave entryway to the much larger, sealed passage downward next to it. She took out a rope ladder of sorts and fastened it around one of the pillars around the symbol, lowering it into the opening as best she could.

Nadia was famously afraid of heights, deathly afraid of heights, and though she knew the drop was over ten meters she carefully traversed down the rope until she could barely see the light from the opening she’d hacked into the sandstone. She’d learned and memorized the architecture of this temple over and over, so she could do this with her eyes closed. The dark had never scared Nadia, not nearly as much as heights, but no matter how much trivial things scared her she knew it would be worth it in the end. She knew that she was only far down enough when the ladder could sway both ways. The way she was facing was a wall of the tunnel, but when she climbed down enough the could no longer brace herself against the wall she knew she had reached near the bottom.

She tentatively, as if performing heart surgery, maneuvered over to the other side of the ladder which now faced an open space; then, soft and timid as a feather, placed her foot behind her until she got a foothold on something that sounded hollow when her boot hit it. The young cleric smiled to herself as she slowly eased onto the wooden thing, which creaked in protest as she eventually came to stand on it, thankfully, finally on solid ground. This was the last place you wanted to fall. Nadia traced her hand along the back wall of the little opening she had maneuvered herself into until she felt a torch.

She dug through her satchel with one hand for the little, intricately carved piece of flint and sharp-as-a-knife steel she kept in a drawstring leather bag from last year’s harvest. She never was too good with starting fires, let alone in the dark, but after a few tries of poking herself with the metal Nadia managed a spark, then a few, then the torch lit up weakly. It was almost like the old bones of the temple needed time to respond, because in seconds the torch roared to life and she could see the whole corridor.

As she knew she would be, Nadia looked down to see she was sitting on an enormous chest. The tunnel stretched downward into the ground so far that looking up she couldn’t see the light peeking through from the main part of the temple. The sandstone was crumbled and worn beyond repair, and it made her wonder if it was actually constructed or was just a natural part of the landscape. The only carvings that had survived the slow destruction were the ones in the little crevices holding chests. Across from her, there was another hole in the wall to hold another chest snugly. The passage was rectangular, to her left and right sat two more identical chests. The rope she’d used to maneuver herself down swung idly near the middle, only feet above what she had grown to fear more than anything else. The floor.

It looked like nothing, Nadia knew that, and a rational person would say that, but with all her research she knew exactly what would happen if she stepped in the middle of the room. It had been designed to be pressure sensitive and it attached to magical currents. With the expanses of gunpowder running like veins under many of their deserts, the intent left little to the imagination.

Nadia looked back to the wall holding the torch and traced her hand along it. The extraordinarily precise carvings nipped at her fingers, their pictures and runes spun intricate tales of battles and magic long forgotten by her people. But there wasn’t the carving she was looking for. That’s all she was here for. A carving. The chest she sat on was likely full of diamonds, gold, armor, books, you name it, but Nadia only needed one thing. A carving. It wasn’t this crevice.

She carefully stepped down onto the sandy ground that made a crunching sound at the touch, hugging the wall. At the first step, she winced for a second, but nothing happened. Okay, she would be fine. She inched along the wall until she made it to the opening just a few meters to the right from where she started, but to her, it felt like miles. Nadia practically threw herself onto the chest behind her when she went behind the opening, her feet safely off the ground. A second of peace as she searched the carvings in this little nook of sand and found nothing.

Again, hug the wall, go to the right. Her heart was beating out of her chest with something between excitement and fear. She didn’t fear death, she feared this not working. For the third time, Nadia threw herself onto tons and tons of precious gems and treasure, paying no mind to them as she searched the wall like a madman until… there it was. A small carving, sitting in the middle of the wall, right under the burnt-out torch. It was a simple figure of a person with emerald green eyes, paint faded. There was an octangular divot in its chest, as if for a key or something else. She dug through her bag again, pulling out a smaller drawstring bag and dumping out the contents onto her lap. The bag was puffy, and upon inspection, it was full of fresh wool, but digging through it she recovered a gleaming emerald, the size of a child’s fist. She shakily held it up to the carving she’d later come to know as the Totem of Undying, and for a few long moments, nothing happened. Time seemed to drag by and the dust in the air stilled as Nadia held her breath.

Then, the emerald fell back out, and she nearly panicked when the carvings in the walls started to light up, and soon the bright, flowing colors of the carvings, worn-out and preserved, spread to the entire room under the temple. The wall she’d put the emerald to fell away unceremoniously and the carvings went back to normal.

Nadia couldn’t tell if she wanted to laugh or cry. She’d been right all along! She’d been RIGHT! Which meant… well, it meant a lot of things. The makeshift door in front of her led to somewhere dark. She felt a draft as her foot hit the same sand-dusted floor, and as soon as it did the torches in the new room seemed to come to life on its own.

This passage was bigger than the little hole she’d dug herself into. There were dozens of corridors leading who knows where lining the walls. The runes carved here were perfectly preserved, painted with intricate colors and dyes, forming swirling rainbows and murals she’d only heard of in books. Some depicted people, warm-toned and ashy gray complexion alike, some a mix of both.

Looking to the opposite end of the room, there was a barely slanted staircase leading up to a throne, where a skeleton donning black and grey robes lay limp against the granite and sandstone, surrounded by treasure and bound books. A pendant was looped around its neck, holding a piece of gold in the shape of the carving of the little person, with glimmering emeralds for eyes. An Evoker.

She stared for a minute. They looked so… peaceful. Had they been waiting all this time for someone? Was she the first visitor? Nadia slowly stepped towards the throne. Her steps triggered carvings hidden under sand and their slight glow spread to the walls, and the ceiling, and she found herself stumbling, running until she stood face-to-face with the inhibitor of the tomb.

Nadia shakily placed a hand against the Evoker’s chest. It took her a minute to find her voice, having not spoken in hours, and she gasped in sandy air and finally managed a whispered, teary, “I’m sorry.”

The pendant started to glow a little, and the chain almost nudged into her palm, so she took it off of the sleeping corpse and clutched in it her palm so hard her knuckles turned white. Nadia brought up a hand to its face and gently cupped the skeleton’s head, leaning in a little closer, “Please help me fix this.” The skeleton’s head fell forward a little, as if in acknowledgment. Nadia watched as dark grey spread from her hand to up her whole arm like a drop of ink in water, and in an instant, the torches blew out.


End file.
